Blacked Out Arms now open in St. Germain

Guns are serious business, and you would be hard pressed to find a business more serious about guns than Blacked Out Arms (BOA) in St. Germain.

Recently opened this past Memorial Day, BOA is a full service gun and ammunition shop licensed to offer customers an endless list of firearm products and services — buy, sell, trade, repair, refinish, clean and manufacture almost anything you can think of.

“We do anywhere from your custom AR builds through standard hand guns, rifles, hunting weapons, shotguns, custom ammunition line,” BOA owner and operator Jason Hyrczyk said. “We’re a class three dealer and manufacturer so we deal with suppressors, machine guns, short barrel rifles, kind of a full service shop.”

In addition to selling all the top brands of firearms and accessories, Hyrczyk takes great pride in the custom work BOA provides.

“We’re a manufacturer, so we find the best parts, put them together and make a great product,” he said. “We do custom loads of ammunition for people. Gunsmithing in house. We do refinishing of weapons in house with Cerakote. We just started doing gold and nickel plating of weapons.”

BOA is at 140 Sunset Blvd. in St. Germain, but before that it was operated out of a machine shop on the property of Hyrczyk’s residence.

For four years Hyrczyk, a firefighter and paramedic for the St. Germain Fire Department, did mostly contract work for a close circle of family and friends.

“For law enforcement and local competition guys that shoot, and it just kind of morphed into something more than we ever planned on doing,” Hyrczyk said.

With an ever-growing list of clients, when the store on Sunset Blvd opened up, he jumped on the opportunity to take BOA to the next level.

“Happened to be this one just fell into the right place at the right time,” Hyrczyk said.

Blue label program

After years networking on the gun show circuit and now with the new store, his customer base has greatly expanded and includes not only hardcore gun enthusiasts, but collectors, hunters, competitive shooters, recreational shooters, and those new to firearms looking for their very first gun.

“I’ve got all walks of life,” Hyrczyk said.

But BOA still does a significant amount of work for law enforcement.

“We do a lot of work for local law guys as individuals as well as agencies around the state,” Hyrczyk said.

Law enforcement personnel, along with those in the military, firefighters, and paramedics, receive certain discounts at BOA as part of a blue label program.

“We do a lot for blue label programs, so anybody in the blue label family, we’ve got different items that we cater to them with,” Hyrczyk said. “Law, military, fire, EMS families. There’s different discount programs for them. Different manufacturers offer different rates for discount.”

A paramedic for over two decades himself, Hyrczyk built BOA with blue label personnel.

“Everybody involved in our business is tied to that family some how, through either fire, EMS, law, or military,” he said. “That’s kind of a big thing for us.”

‘Love at first squeeze’

Hyrczyk’s passion for firearms began on the trap range as a teenager and grew as he was exposed to more and more weaponry.

“The guys started showing me more and more. I went to the range with them and it was love at first squeeze,” he remembered. “I got to sample a gambit of everything from your competition pistols to your sub machine guns. So that just kind of grew the love more and more, people being decent enough to want and go out and show you something cool.”

When you walk into BOA, you see something cool at every glance. The walls and glass cases are full of impressive weapons, and they won’t all break the bank.

“We carry a quality line of budget weapons also for people who want them for protection, recreation, so we kind of cater to everybody,” Hyrczyk said. “We cater to everybody with their basic small stuff all the way to your high end, you know, $20,000-$30,000 weapons.”

BOA is federally licensed and Hyrczyk, who plans, in the future, to host gun safety and concealed carry classes at BOA, said he is adamant about absolute compliance with laws and regulations.

“Everything is right by the books. There is no corners cut on that,” he said. “There’s no room to do that. I’m a stickler for that. There’s no gray area. You’re coming into purchase a weapon you’re going to get a background check. We abide by all state and federal regulations.”

And because they do, BOA is able to legally offer its customers a vast array of firearm products and services.

“I have access to legitimately everything you could almost think of. I don’t think you could come up with a weapon, realistic wise, that we don’t have access to,” Hyrczyk said.

That is some serious business.

Blacked Out Arms is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with occasional weekends closed for gun shows.